18 Month Milestones and Memories

Here are some of the McCulloch happenings for November...and part of December. I was sewing an apron one warm day while Emma was playing in the back yard and I went out to check on her just as she was going down the slide. I'm glad I didn't miss it! I was very cute and she looved it. This playground set came with the house and the slide is lopsided so she almost fell off several times but it was fun to watch. Too bad it is freezing in Albuquerque now! She'll have to wait until Spring to get back down the slide.

The first weekend in November we went to Kingman for Skye Lee McDaniel's wedding. It was such a fun wedding. Here is Skye with the groom... just kidding, her dog Brule that walked her down the aisle.. Emma loved playing with all the many pumpkins that were there. And she loved playing in the dirt the most!

Congratulations Skye Lee! We love you! It was sooo good to see Stacy, Skye and Brandon. I love those guys!

We were able to see my dad on the way out of town. He leant me a fun little Danish cookbook. I've made some Danish meatballs for our ward's cultural dinner and some shortbread. I want to try a few more before I send it back to him. We also were able to see Duke, my Dad's boxer dog that we got when I was about 15. He died about a week after we were there. :( Emma's best friend Lana (who she calls "Nana") had her second birthday and we were able to join in the celebrations a little.

Emma turned 18 months herself this month. She is a very energetic, fun, smart and special little girl. She loves the Nursery. She loves other kids and new people. She loves books, especially turning the pages by herself. She loves to color very much and is getting pretty good at it. She still uses both her left and right hands to draw and eat. She loves to try to say new words all the time. Some of her favorites are: milk, mama, daddy, shoes, poo poo, diaper, ball, book, cheese, yep, nope, hi, bye, night night.... she know where her eyes and nose and ears and hair and teeth are and loves to give hugs and kisses. We love her so much!!!! She also loves to make smiley faces! We went to wonderful Panguitch, Utah for Thanksgiving. We picked up Megan in Flagstaff on the way there. Emma loved the company in the back seat! It was such a fun trip. I really enjoyed seeing my grandparents (Frandsens) and my Great-Grandparents (Proctors) who are in their 90's. My sweet great grandma has Dementia and Great-Grandpa has cancer so it was very important to me that we were able to see them and spend time with them. I can't believe I didn't get any pictures with them! Of couse after our big meal on Thursday (I made a big yummy waldorf salad, a pumpkin cheesecake and a fruit cheesecake) and after some pie we went up to the mountains to get some Christmas trees. Bob and Amy got one, as well as my Mom and Amber (even though Amber did not have her own car to transport said Christmas tree). .. Yes, my mom has a puppy in her pocket.

Meet Samwise, the newest member of the Shupe family.

Despite John's cheesey smile.. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture.

Emma and Robby, he's wearing Emma's fusia jacket. It was pretty cold up there.

Emma loved the snow and pine cones! Joshua

I'm part of a play group that meets once a week and I usually can go once a month. This is at our little aquarium. This is Emma Jane and Bailey Munns by the sting rays

we love turtles! Emma climed up on this little bench seating area in front of the big aquarium and had a laughing and squealing party. When she gets really excited and is having a reallly good time she screams! Lunch with the play group.. Otis, Olivia, Emma and Bailey...As Emma turned 18 months I thought I would try her on regular cow's milk (she has been drinking goats's milk for the past six months.. and I am still nursing her a little). Things were okay for the first few days and then she started getting diarrhea again, so I switched her to Lactose Free cow's milk.. and I think it is the answer! She had a pretty bad diaper rash last weekend but she has very sensitive skin and gets them with any new food. Poor thing. I have heard that even more people are Lactose sensitive than they realize. I loooove my dairy!

Also, Emma is still sleeping in bed with us! I love it and it has been very easy and natural for us.. but our bed is getting pretty crowded so I'm going to start putting her to sleep on her own bed. Any suggestions or experiences with that? I also have been thinking more about potty training. I think she is getting close to being ready.. scary! I'm not looking forward to it!!

I am very excited for Christmas this year! I love having all the beautiful decorations up in our home (even though Emma has broken at least five ornaments already!) and I love Nativities and Christmas music and movies! We had our Stake Nativity Open house and Handel's Messiah concert last weekend and then were able to watch the First Presidency's Christmas devotional. We had a dinner at our house and invited three families over to watch it (The McCrakins, Formisanos and Dunlaps). It was a lot of fun albiet distracting at times with the three little girls! (Lana, Olivia and Emma). John and I are hoping that this Christmas season we can lose weight instead of gaining it! I took a couple month off .. but last week I started working out again! I need to learn how to stay consistent! I have lost about a pound and a half.. not the 10 I was hoping for.. but I'll take it! I'm trying to form a true habit by exercising every day in December (expect for Sundays)... I've missed a few days but it's definetly become more part of my routine. Exercise is sooooo good for you! Someday I WILL run a half marathon!

September and October...

Hello friends!

I am still back-tracking and trying to keep up with our family journaling..

We made a trip to Mesa/Tempe at the end of September for Shannon Gorley's wedding. (Someone John grew up with when he lived in Apache Junction, AZ.) We stayed with Bob and Amy in their new house. It was a lot of fun. Amy and I went to IKEA with the kids and I fell in love. It was so good to see John's Family, Nancy (Nanny), Kenny (Grumps), Ganes (Uncle G), and Max (Uncle Frank). It was the first completely non-secular wedding we had ever been to. It was interesting to be at a wedding and never hear God or anything close mentioned at all. The vows were beautiful though. Kenny had just gotten back from Alaska and had a little grizzly bear for Emma and some awesome grizzly stories ..

The next weekend was General Conference and the Balloon Fiesta! My mom and brother Josh came for the weekend. It was a lot of fun. John missed all of the balloons because he was busy studying, so I am really glad they came. I knew Emma would love it and she did! We went to the Mass Ascension.
There were a lot of balloons and a ton of people. Here's Josh.

The kissing bees..
Emma loved this frog guy. All the other kids were kind of afraid of him, but he cracked Emma up! She would swing punches at him (he does actually make a good punching bag) and give him high fives. She is a picture of pure bliss..

The Air Force Band was there rocking out and Emma rocked out along with them.. she danced for a good ten minutes with no signs of stopping! Needless to say she was pretty much stealing the show..

We took a walk by the River Sunday morning. Emma loooves to be outside.

This is at the Petroglyphs Monument with the play group. (Aubrey, Gavin, Olivia and Emma). It was maybe a little too trecherous for toddlers, but they all had so much fun! Emma found an ant hill and thought it was the coolest thing.

There was a lot of movement during this photo shoot, but I have to share.. I thought it was so cute and how amazing it is to see the natural motherely instincts of a 17 month old. She got all of our clean laundry off the couch and was swaddling and covering (and burying) her little baby doll that she was carrying around in a little basket. And then giving the baby a drink of her sippy cup.. soo sweet!

I LOVE FALL TIME! We went out to McCall's Pumpkin Patch with the Smith's. Levi and Emma rode the cattle train together. We got a few pumpkins and Emma loved to pick up the pumpkins and throw them to watch them bounce, and she would try to carry several at once. I guess she loves Autumn also!

Emma also loves to read!

..and make funny faces! I also love fall because of all the pumpkin! (and squash and sweet potatoes).. I made something pumpkiny every week at least! Here's the pumpkin creme brule.. (divine) Here's a pumpkin cupcake with pumpkin cream cheese frosting I made. I found the best recipe for pumpkin cheese cake streusel cupcakes. yummmy! Emma also enjoyed all the pumpkin things I made, but cannot pass up some good cold cereal (also one of my favorite things)

Happy Halloween!!! We had so much fun with Halloween! I spent hours and lots of dollars making our costumes.. but it was well worth it. We had been planning this for several years.. and I'm pretty sure I fullfilled one of John's childhood fantasies as well. He was Han Solo with the boots, blaster and holster in tact! I was Princess Leia and Emma Jane was an Ewok. It was a lot of fun. We went to our ward Halloween Carnival the night before Halloween. Emma had so much fun. She really loves to be around a lot of people and other kids and likes to stay busy busy busy. I had to chase her around for a while before I got any good pictures of her.

sleepy ewok.

giggly ewok. This is Halloween morning when Emma drew some art work in the bathtub. It was just chalk. She was very proud of her work. :) Nanny and Grumps came over and helped hand out candy. Kenny is the best pumpkin carver. Emma was eating the pumpkin scraps raw! And I thought I liked pumpkin! We made some yummy pumpkin soup and watch some baseball. Happy Halloween!! November 1st, almost 18 months. Emma Jane climbing on Daddy's books.

Also.. John and I both had birthdays in October. We are getting old!